He said, “This client of mine is not laundering money. He is using this vehicle to liquidate assets abroad so that the Russian government cannot confiscate them. The money was legally acquired, but it cannot be protected where it is.”
There was irony in the fact that Limonov was fingering the Russian government as the villains, but he wasn’t thinking about that now.
Walker said, “Look. I understand. I really do. If you would like, I can, perhaps, take a portion of these assets and buy Bitcoin with them. Maybe three, four hundred million U.S. I’m just not ready to draw the attention to myself by dealing with the amount of money you’re talking about.”
“You won’t be drawing attention, Mr. Walker. BlackHole’s daily trades are averaging more than we need to trade. If you simply do not make the purchases for your other large clients for the next few weeks, you can take this money and not draw the attention to yourself that you fear. You will purchase our Bitcoin, in lieu of making purchases for your other clients. Only for a short time. I doubt your clients would know, or even much care, if you waited a week or two to make their trades.”
“Are you mad? I can assure you they will both know and care.”
Limonov leaned closer. “A year ago you had a two-week-long break in trading. A technical glitch, you called it in the media. What was that?”
Walker looked blankly back at the man. Finally, he said, “It was a technical glitch.”
“I think not. I think you were making trades for Vadim Rochenkov, a Ukrainian billionaire. I think the amount he had you trading made you worry you would remove liquidity from the Bitcoin market and reveal what you were doing, so you faked a technical issue. Your other clients were annoyed, but you were the only game in town, as it were, so you continued on. I merely ask you to repeat the system that you yourself invented and utilized.”
Walker stood up from his desk. “I don’t know how else to tell you this. No. Not interested. You need to find some other avenue, Mr. Ivanov. Surely the world is full of schemes that will work for you.”
He stepped toward the door. “Now, if you will excuse me.”
The Russians climbed back into their SUV outside. Around them sat four other men, all called up by Vlad Kozlov as protection after the incident with Jack Ryan, Jr., in Luxembourg the day before. They were private contractors from Steel Securitas LLC. They were as tight with the Russian government as any Spetsnaz unit, although their allegiance was financial, not ideological or patriotic.
Steel Securitas was one of the largest private security contractors in the world. Based in Dubai, it was big in executive protection, site security, tactical training, and even direct-action operations, and it was used by small governments and large corporations all over the planet.
Its vetting process was robust, but with 40,000 employees around the world, a few bad apples were to be expected.
The Kremlin Security Council, run by Mikhail Grankin, had actively sought out these bad apples and their managers, paid them dearly for no-questions-asked work, and ensured their trust with the not-so-veiled threats that these men were now working for the FSB, and the FSB could fucking ruin them if they didn’t take their money and keep their mouths shut about the work and their clients.
Another Land Cruiser with four more Steel Securitas men idled in the street behind them.
As they rolled off down the street, Kozlov pulled out his phone and held it up toward Limonov. He said, “I see no alternative.”
Limonov looked like he was going to be sick. He said, “Perhaps if we wait a day and call on Walker again. Maybe I can—”
Kozlov shook his head, turned away from Andrei Limonov, and dialed a number on the mobile. After a moment he heard someone answer. A male voice spoke English. “Yes?”
Kozlov spoke English as well. “Pick them up. Carefully. We need them alive.”
Limonov thought he heard a sniff, like that of laughter, on the other end.
“Of course,” said the man, and the phone went dead.
42
The Hendley Associates jet touched down on Beef Island in the mid-afternoon, and after the jet cleared customs, John Clark and Adara Sherman climbed into a jeep left for them on the tarmac. Together they drove to a marina in East End Bay in the adjoining island of Tortola. They were met at the dock by a man standing next to a floating dinghy, and after handshakes he handed over a set of keys to Adara.
“Everything you asked for is already stocked and on board. You’re moored at number fifty-three. It’s the 1978 fifty-two-foot Irwin ketch you picked from the rental photos.”
“Excellent,” Adara said, and she tipped the man $200 for his quick work.
The man looked Adara and John over for a second. She was in her mid-thirties and he in his mid-sixties, and John caught the inference by the look — he clearly thought John and Adara were a couple. Clark felt a twinge of anger that this stranger took him for a geezer with a trophy wife or — because Adara wasn’t wearing a ring and Clark was — perhaps the marina employee assumed Clark was taking his girlfriend down to the islands for some frivolity away from his wife back home.
Clark didn’t like it, but he did nothing to dissuade the man’s assumptions. He figured he wasn’t the first rich old philandering bastard renting a sailboat in the marina here.
It was a good cover story.
As John sat at the helm of the dinghy and pulled out into the marina with Adara next to him, he leaned closer to her. “I hope you didn’t have him stock this boat with too many things. With a little luck we’ll only need it for one night.”
“Not too much. There’s enough for a few days, because I thought it might look fishy if we went to all this trouble just for a twenty-four-hour cruise.”
“Good thinking.”
Adara added, “I think that guy back there was rendering judgment on us both.”
Clark nodded. “Yeah, but he sure took our money, didn’t he?”
Adara laughed. “Yes, he did. Maybe I should have dressed differently, played into my cover story a little.” Sherman wore khakis and a white polo. Her short blond hair was pulled back in a small ponytail. She was young and attractive, but hardly the image of a gold digger on a Caribbean vacation with her sugar daddy.
“And maybe I should wear more rings on my fingers and a fat chain around my neck,” Clark said. “I could get some Botox, too.”
Adara laughed at the thought.
They piloted out into a field of mooring balls, most of which had sailboats or catamarans attached to them. Quickly they found mooring ball number 53, and they motored slowly around the white monohull sailboat attached to it.
Clark liked what he saw. It was big enough to be comfortable, but not too big to be difficult to captain. It wasn’t new and flashy. Adara had told him on the plane it was nearly forty years old, but it looked like it had been lovingly maintained.
They tied the dinghy off on a cleat on the Irwin’s gunwale and climbed up onto the deck. Another dinghy, this one a little smaller, was tied off on the back of the boat.
Together they walked around the deck, then went through the cockpit and stood at the helm. Adara said, “She’ll do twelve knots on her engines. More under sail, depending on the conditions.” She raised a finger as she thought of something else. “These Irwins heel over pretty dramatically in the wind, though, so don’t forget to hold on.”
Clark just smiled. He told himself no thirty-five-year-old was going to teach him anything about boating, but he caught himself. She wasn’t patronizing him, she was looking out for him, and he knew he should appreciate it.
After a walk around belowdecks and a quick survey of the navigation area, the radios, engines, and emergency pumps, Clark rendered his judgment on the boat. “You’ve done well, Ms. Sherman.”